and he looks better there—­more like a parson—­than anywhere else.  He is here above the ordinary level of his hearers; if it were not for the galleries, minute as may be his physiology, he would be the loftiest being present; and if he wishes to “keep up appearances,” we would advise him to remain in the pulpit and have his meals there.  Casting joking overboard—­out of the pulpit if you like—­it may be said that Mr. Martyn as a preacher has many fair qualities.  It is true he has defects; but who has not?—­unless it be a deacon;—­still there is something in his style which indicates earnestness, something in his language, demonstrative of culture and eloquence.  His main pulpit fault is that he “goes off” too soon and too frequently.  In the course of a sermon he will give you three or four perorations, and sometimes wind up without treating you to one.  There is nothing very metaphysical in his subjects; sometimes he wanders slightly into space; occasionally he exhausts himself in fighting out the mysteries of faith, and grace, and justification; but in the ordinary run of his talk you can get good pictures of practical matters.  He is a lover of nature, is fond of talking about the sublime and the beautiful, conjointly with other things freely named in Burke’s essay, can pile up the agony with a good deal of ability, and split the ears of the groundlings as the occasion requires.  He can get into a white heat quickly, or blow his solemn anger gradually—­wind it up by degrees, and make it burst at a given point of feeling.  He is a better declaimer than reasoner—­has a stronger flow of imagination than logic.  There is nothing bitter or mocking in his tone.  He seldom flings the shafts of ridicule or irony.  He constructs calmly, and then sends up the rocket:  he draws you slowly to a certain point, and then tells you to look out for “it’s coming.”  His apparatus is well fixed; he can give you any kind of dissolving view.  His ecstacies are rapid and, therefore, soon over.  The level places in his sermons are rather heavy, and, at times, uninteresting.  It is only when the thermometer is rising that you enjoy him, and only when he reaches the climax and explodes, that you fall back and ask for water and a fan.  Taking him in the aggregate we are of opinion that he is a good preacher; that he goes through his ordinary duties easily and complacently.  He gets well paid for what be does—­last year his salary exceeded 340 pounds; and our advice to him is—­keep on good terms with the bulk of “the brethren,” hammer as much piety into them as possible, tickle the deacons into a genial humour, and look regularly after the pew-rents.

No.  IV.

LUNE-STREET WESLEYAN METHODIST CHAPEL.